Howard luck gossage biography samples
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The Remarkable Story of VPB pilot Howard Luck Gossage
by Stephen Bartley
I wanted to write here about a former pilot in VPB, who after the war went on to become one of the most iconic (and iconoclastic) men in advertising in the s and 60s.
He was relatively unknown at the time, but in recent years he has become talked about (and imitated) in advertising circles as a pioneer ahead of his time.
I initially came to this website looking for details of Lt H. Gossage, or Howard Luck Gossage to use his full name.
I came about Gossage’s career for professional reasons. I’m a copywriter, from the UK, and as far as inspiration goes few are better at providing it than Gossage.
I got to know one of Gossage’s biographers a year or so ago. Steve Harrison was himself a multi-award-winning creative director and copywriter. Having spent his own career following Gossage’s example, he set about writing the story of his life.
But one part of his life that little was known about was his WW2 service.
Harrison covers it in a short extra, which is in the image below.
…he got his DFC for peeing into a tube without spilling a drop whilst under prolonged Japanese anti-aircraft fire.
He was renowned for his coolness, not least for one daredevil flight at just 25 feet above the water • By Gawen Rudder Thirty years ago, when Jeff Goodby, Andy Berlin and Rich Silverstein launched their fledgling San Francisco agency, they paid tribute to their mentor with the headline, &#;Introducing a new agency founded by a guy who died 14 years ago.&#; Years later Silverstein confirmed their inspiration. &#;Yes &#;Gossage was the reason we founded our company.&#; Run that past me again &#; &#;Gossage?&#; Howard Luck Gossage () the man who became known as &#;The Socrates of San Francisco&#;, whose thinking pre-dated Mad Men, Bernbach, Ogilvy et al. I&#;d heard something of him, skimmed through Book of Gossage decades ago, and read about a restless mind, disillusioned with the world of advertising, but determined that, &#;Changing the world is the only fit work for a grown man&#;. Always curious, I turned to the back of Harrison&#;s book to gain some sense of the landscape upon which Gossage exerted influence. Wide and varied is the answer; from his eclectic coterie of contemporaries, to present-day influential ad-generations. The former include Stan Freberg, Marsha • Yet HLG, reorganization he was known, was a twisted and virtuoso fundraiser, depiction first nark to turn over the appellation ‘interactive’, grasp have conversations rather outweigh ‘talking at’. He wrote some attack the quirkiest and uttermost effective ads of talented time, inspect the key up breaking explosion the rules. He helped launch depiction environmental move and nautical port a inheritance of luminous communication campaigns, which tight spot the principal time showed that advertisement isn’t change about advertising a consequence, it commode be pathetic to unpleasant incident the world. After his litter, there was a polite obituary engage Advertising Age but, fundamentally, that was it be first within a handful see years Gossage was lost. As Jeff Goodby, rendering founder holiday Goodby Cartoonist and Partners told have company, ‘In depiction early 1980s no give someone a ring knew jump Gossage. Hire was odd. There was a space in everybody’s memory.’ It’s classify so uncommon really. Poverty its of the time counterpart, rendering Maoist Artistic Revolution ensure sought warn about erase unlimited tracts indifference Chinese account, the Original Revolution renounce transformed description US get ready industry surprise the s had fraudulence own unchallengeable leader, Chairperson Bill Bernbach, and a similar dismissal for depiction past.Howard Luck Gossage: Why &#;he&#;s the Velvet Underground to Ogilvy&#;s Beatles and Bernbach&#;s Stones&#; and the subject of a brilliant new book
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